Suddenly, within a few years, apps became in thing, and mobile websites became outdated. Now apps rather than websites are preferred by more people for accessing online and digital content.
How did it happen? At the outset, mobile websites offer a range of advantages like easier and flexible access without any constraint of App Store or Play Store download. On top of all, mobile websites are search engine friendly and can be accessed simply through Google.
But still, apps leave websites far behind in popularity. There are several reasons behind this. Here we explain a few of them.
Mobile Apps are Quicker in Performance
For users, it is the quick access to what they want that matters, which is where apps excel over websites. Mobile apps are generally at least one and half times faster to load than mobile websites. Apps also carry out actions and respond to user activities much quicker.
Mobile apps can offer a far more superior performance only because it stores data locally on the device and helps retrieve data at lightning speed. In contrast, websites need to fetch data from the web servers, which may take at least a few seconds, depending on the size.
There is another technical reason. Mobile websites use JavaScript for running different functions, and that lowers the speed. In contrast, apps running on the latest frameworks make performance much faster.
Scope of Personalization
Smartphone devices are predominantly personal devices that, whether you access mobile websites or an app, you always like to have a personalized user experience based on your preference and constraints. Well, for this, mobile websites have a very limited scope, while apps can personalize user experience and content to the optimum level.
From choosing the app setting options for choosing between dark or light mode to choosing custom notifications to in-app recommendations based on user behavior and purchase history, apps can personalize user experience in many ways.
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Staying Connected Through Notifications
For the last two decades, email was the most popular communication tool; push notifications took its place in recent years. Indeed, personalized notifications can be sent to the delight of the users who, instead of finding them annoying, can interact with them just because of the personalized offers, content, or updates.
Both push and in-app notifications have become the most user-friendly alternatives to communicate with users in a streamlined and smooth manner. The ease of sending instant notifications without any intrusions became popular for communicating with the users. On the other hand, users find it extremely helpful to stay updated and connected.
Utilizing the Device Features to the Optimum Level
Mobile apps can easily take advantage of device features such as GPS, sensors, camera, contact list, phone calls, accelerometer, etc., for different features and functionalities. For example, when you are using an on-demand food app, the app allows you to upload the food image you are complaining about. Similarly, an Uber app uses your device location to reach your spot and pick you up.
The best thing is, all these device features can drastically reduce your efforts and help you to complete actions by using your device features. You can instantly share your location data, capture an image, and share, make an in-app call, chat with customer support, or another user just by using your app.
Apart from making it faster and easier to take many in-app actions, the ease of interactions helps improve engagement and corresponding business conversion. Though mobile websites can utilize certain device features, their capability is far limited in comparison to mobile apps.
Unperturbed Access Irrespective of Connectivity
Mobile apps smooth and unperturbed access to content and functionalities irrespective of the availability of the network connection. An app allows instant access with just a single tap and doesn’t need intermediaries like web browsers. Moreover, most apps these days allow both offline and online access.
There are many apps that, by allowing both offline and online access, makes it extremely easier for users to consume vital content. Many apps from niches such as retail, banking, finance, games, and news media allow offline access to their content, and any changes are updated as soon as the network is restored.
The offline access or access to app content offline is probably the most positive difference between a mobile application and the mobile web. Though apps also need a working internet connection to update content and carry out critical tasks such as making payments or sending notifications, they can offer access to essential content and app features without a net connection. Mobile web fetching data from remote servers cannot provide offline access except a few web pages cached locally in the device.
Conclusion
In all regards, mobile apps offer a far more superior, lucid, and smooth user experience compared to websites. No wonder apps became the primary digital footprints of companies around the world. Now the mobile web is embracing innovative technologies with an app-like look and feel to keep pace with the apps. Progressive Web App (PWA) is a good example.